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Tip

Tip

Shop bought Madeira cake can vary in texture so you may need to add a little extra melted white chocolate to make the mixture stick into balls.

Tip

Tip

To avoid a bloom on the chocolate, cover the cake pop balls in chocolate on the day or day before you want to eat them at the earliest. Make sure you don’t overheat the chocolate. Once finished, store them in a cool place, not the fridge.

Method

Pulse the Madeira cake in a food processor until you have fine crumbs. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over just simmering water or in the microwave. Stir the orange zest into the chocolate, then work the chocolate into the crumbs using your hands.

Form into 10 small truffle-sized balls, then roll gently in your palms to smooth the surface. Arrange the balls on a baking parchment-lined dinner plate. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the mixture to set.

Melt the dark chocolate in a microwave or over a bowl of just simmering water. Dip a lolly stick into the melted chocolate about 1.5cm in and poke half way into a cake ball. Repeat with the remaining balls. Put them back on the plate. Return to the fridge for five minutes.

Dip the cake pops one at a time into the melted chocolate, allowing any excess chocolate to drip off and spin the pops to even out the surface. Poke the pops into a piece of polystyrene or cake pop holder if you have one, keeping the pops apart. Allow to set for about half an hour.

Heat the white chocolate in a microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Allow to cool for a few minutes until it has a thick, runny consistency. If the chocolate is too hot, it will melt the dark chocolate underneath. Spoon a small amount on top of the cake pops, tip them back and forth so it runs down the sides a little. If you have holly decorations, pop one on the top of each pop. If using writing icing, wait for another 20 minutes or so until the white chocolate has set. Pipe on holly leaves with the green icing and two little dots for berries using the red.

I made the Madeira loaf cake from this site too, it made an 800g loaf so I've frozen some for another batch of 'pops' in a few weeks time!
I found the white chocolate perfect for binding but when I poked the sticks in, the ball cracked a little, it held together and dunked in the dark chocolate, up till this point I thought I was doing well... Found it hard to get enough choc on and then getting it even, used a pastry brush to help ease it round but this left marks, which I covered with choc stars, smarties & hundreds and thousands!! At the end, I think they look great, the harshest critics (kids) will be the judges tomorrow!!

I made 2 batches of these, 1 batch as per the recipe and for the other I added a little more madiera & slug of brandy (sorry for the vague measurements but I'm a bit of a "chuck it in till it looks right kind of cook!"

Both batches were very nice, one for the kids & one for the adults!

I'll probably try these with a few different flavours as the first batch is almost gone already!

Just made the cake balls ready to decorate - in fridge setting now. Binded fine, I used homemade Madeira and the lower amount of 140g of white chocolate. Also I didn't heat the chocolate too much just enough so it was only just melted, and not too hot and runny! I think that's the secret to the chocolate binding without the need of butter icing!

Made these for dessert on christmas day. They were really tasty and looked amazing. Took the advice of adding some butter icing to the cake mixture. Would definitely do again maybe for a birthday and add smarties or other small sweets to decorate.

Just finished making these. I found the chocolate worked perfectly for binding the mix, I used a shop bought cake that was quite moist and has a good texture. Can't wait to serve these up with coffee and a wafer thin mint on Christmas day! They look fab and good fun to make!

I made these yesterday for a xmas party, I found that they didn't form as well with the melted chocolate so I added the traditional butter cream just enought to help bind them together.
Apart from that they made a lovely centre piece taste great too..
Will be making more for xmas but using just the butter cream this time.

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